reading

Various writings that touch on reading as a meaningful, life-affirming, intellectually-edifying activity.

Reading Aloud: Ben Lerner’s “The Rescue”

Reading aloud a poem published in the New York Review of Books September 21, 2023 issue.

2023-09-24
Idle Reflections On Literature, Books Reading Journal

Strata: William Smith’s Geological Maps

Not long ago I ordered "Strata: William Smith’s Geological Maps" lighting a fire of memory and reflection

2023-05-15
New Acquisitions On Literature, Books

Cultural Consumption, 2022-Style! Best of!

The best books and films of 2022, some description thereof, as well as a few of the worst.

2022-12-31
Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Jane Eyre: Post-Colonial Christian Zealotry?

Reading "Jane Eyre" for the second time revealed a quite different— quite Christian and not postcolonial—one from what inhabited my memory (and imagination).

2022-12-26
On Literature, Books Reading Journal

Pleasures in Reading: Edgar Lee Master’s “Spoon River Anthology”

From the "Spoon River Anthology" by Edgar Lee Masters, excerpts and commentary on the experience of its reading

2022-11-10
On Literature, Books Idle Reflections Reading Journal

Powerful May Reading, Viewing: 2022 edition

May reading and viewing of Ashley Vaught in 2022. Best of: "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia, "Dubliners", and "Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy" by Ryusuke Hamaguchi

2022-06-02
Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Reading Ulysses’ “Oxen of the Sun” (to oneself, aloud, and just in general)

On the experience, specifically pain, of reading as instanced with reference to the modernist masterpiece "Ulysses" by Irish writer James Joyce.

2022-05-23
On Literature, Books Reading Journal

Narcoleptically Read & Watched: April 2022

How do you read and watch narcoleptically? Binging series and reading sparingly, here and there.

2022-05-04
Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Fred Hyatt: Not Enough Technology Pessimism!

A spirited response enjoining MORE pessimism to Fred Hyatt’s Washington Post editorial on technology and democracy

2021-05-28
On Ideas, Concepts, Intuitions

Coming to Booker T. Washington’s “Up From Slavery”

The circumstances of my purchase and knowledge of “Up From Slavery,” Booker T. Washington’s most famous autobiography

2021-02-10
Reading Journal On Literature, Books

Bad Poetry Morning

Repeatedly not finishing a sentence. Either subject or predicate but not both. Becomes some poetry itself.

2021-01-17
Idle Reflections

Read Viewed Consumed 2020-12

Perhaps I began the month of December inauspiciously, insofar as I read/viewed/consumed nothing on the first day of the month (see below). In fact, I did read two different Harry...